The Friday Post #16: Who are Ordinary Heroes? Librarians!

Here’s the Friday Post #16 for Sept 5 2008. The American Library Association has announced that Banned Books Week starts Sept 27 2008.

When the talk turns to intellectual censorship, most librarians – or, those who have earned a graduate degree in Library & Information Science and who generally possess a mild, welcoming and non-confrontational professional demeanor – get a fierce red and glaring quality around their eyes… because They. Just. Do. Not. Believe. in. Censorship.

In my own defense, I’ve stayed up way too late for the past two weeks in order to listen to speeches by assorted American politicians of both parties who deserved a fair hearing during their respective conventions. Perhaps this has affected my mental judgement. So when my oldest child (KHam the feminist) encouraged me to post this item about one public librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, who refused to censor books in the Wasilla, Alaska public library (found on Time.com – Sept 2 2008 ), I found some merit in this story:

” She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving “full support” to the mayor. ”

Daughter also forwarded a link to the Jezebel blog (note: no link) for an article written by Sadie Stein on the topic of “Sexy Librarians dated Sept 4 2008 (and for which there are already 200+ comments). Folks, sexy is not a term that is going to appear much on this blog, nor is it likely a general adjective one would apply to their friendly librarians but in this “silly season” of politics and potential intellectual censorship, it’s worth a read.